STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A 21-year-old from Great Kills who believed he was ripped off in a drug deal came back with his father and a baseball bat to settle the $10 debt, police allege.

The episode took place about 10:20 p.m. Saturday, on the platform of the Great Kills station of the Staten Island Railway, according to authorities.

The father, James T. Steele, 55, of the 100 block of Sampson Street, held the man while his son, Michael J. Steele, 21, hit the man's arms and body with a wooden bat and told him, "Give me my $10 back!" according to court papers.

The younger Steele had given the victim $10 for a drug deal but didn't get what he was promised and came back with his father, according to law enforcement sources.

The Steeles' timing was faulty, though. As one police source tells it, a train pulled up at the station while they were administering the beating, and out stepped two Metropolitan Transit Authority police officers.

A woman also witnessed the beating, according to court papers.

The victim refused medical assistance at the scene, the source said, and both father and son found themselves under arrest.

Both face charges of second- and third-degree assault, fourth-degree criminal possession of a weapon and second-degree harassment.

When contacted by the Advance, James Steele said his son told him he had just been mugged, and the dad said he didn't realize a marijuana deal was involved until after the confrontation.

The bat, he said, "was kind of just a scare tactic," and his son didn't repeatedly hit the victim with it as alleged. Rather, he said, the situation became a shoving match with he and his son on one side, and the alleged victim and his friends on the other.

According to both the elder Steele and a law enforcement source, it's unlikely the alleged victim -- who also has an arrest record, court documents show -- will pursue the charges.

The elder Steele said he called 911 just a few seconds before the patrolling MTA officers arrived.

He told the Advance he regretted getting into the confrontation.

"If I had the chance to do it all over again, it wouldn't have even happened," he said. "The best thing, of course, would be to call 911."

His son, he said, will have a giftless Christmas as a punishment, and will enter a drug treatment program.

The younger Steele is also charged with seventh-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance -- police allege they found nine doses of the prescription drug Suboxone in his pants pocket.

"He has a prescription for that," James Steele said.

Suboxone is prescribed to treat opiate and heroin addiction, but it is often taken recreationally by drug abusers.

James Steele said his son has battled opiate addiction, and had gone through the Dynamite Youth Center's residential treatment program in Fallsburg, N.Y.